Is it possible to bruise your sternum?

This weekend was FORC's first annual series of MTB races at Scott County Park, the Mean Fuzzy. Two days of racing with multiple categories and the good swag that FORC is known for made for a FANTASTIC first event.

Saturday was a "short track" race. This was my first attempt at short track and it was AWESOME. I'm not sure what else to say about it- I felt good and the course was great fun. I really need to work on my technical skills--I know I had the fitness to do much more than I did, even in a race that is generally less technical. My race (novice) was six laps and lasted around 28 minutes (balls to the wall!). The course was dry and fast, making for good clean fun.

Sunday was the cross country (XC) race. Two laps, 10 miles. Again, I was feeling really good about my fitness--but this was definitely more technical than the short track. I rode most of the race with Christie Klemish, until I decided it would be fun to wreck like a cartoon character.

Here's the scene: left handlebar hits tree, recover, right handlebar hits tree, barely recover, small root system finishes me off. Wobble, wobble, whoa! It was slow motion as I started to tip right, and all I could think was: "That is a lot of poison ivy." The next thing I know, I'm in the ditch (head lower than feet) and have somehow lost my right shoe. I took the end of my handlebars to the sternum (luckily no bar ends!) and had the wind knocked out of me. When the stars and tweeting birds cleared and my eyes focused, I was face-to-face with a three-leafed beauty.

Don't get me wrong- I love rolling around in poison ivy just as much as the next girl. But as I looked for my shoe (which I found still attached to my bike?) I just felt dirty.

I feel bad for the guy behind me- when he came around the corner all he would've seen sticking out of the ditch is two spinning wheels and perhaps a black-socked foot. Rock and roll.

My day was topped off by a good Zanfel scrubbing in the parking lot and a couple-hour jaunt to the ER with Matt Klemish (Christie's husband) to take care of his 3rd-degree ankle sprain (a nice, gnarly knot). Genesis East had Klem out lightning fast and we were back at the course sipping beers before the end of the expert race--which, by the way, was over 30 miles and took nearly three hours. This is why Bruce Grell is my hero. What a freak!

Side note: I seriously love that Zanfel. Seriously. If you do anything in the woods, ever, you must have this stuff. Do not cry to me about the cost, I am not listening. It is worth every penny.

Results: Sat- 1 of 3 Women's Novice, Sun- 3 of 6 Women's Novice, pain with deep breaths, slight bad-beer buzz. See you in the funny pages...

Stayin' at The Bates

It’s true, and I can vouch: you get what you pay for… and I stayed at a $43 motel on Tuesday.

When I first pulled in to Nowhere, KS I stopped at a gas station to fill up and get anything I would need for the next day’s 5am start- cereal bar, juice, caffeine. The guy behind the counter had a very Jeffrey Dahmer-esque vibe. So when he asked me why I wouldn’t stop by in the morning, I minimized any information and got the hell out of there. But not before he got in a “What does your license plate say? I can tell you’re not from here… we don’t get many good-lookin’ women like you around here.” He followed this with one of the most horrifying laugh/grin combinations I have ever seen-- outside of a movie theater. Seriously. We’re talking cheap “Halloween Sound Effects” cassette. It was all I could do to stifle my Jamie Lee Curtis scream.

I should mention here that I had been in a van for nine hours after a two hour bike ride. My clothes were wrinkled and I was wearing pool shoes. My skin was in a civil war which resulted in three meteor-sized pimples around my left eye. (When I got home Sean asked, “What’s on your face?”) So no, I was not a “good looking woman” by any stretch of the imagination.

I escape the gas station unscathed but shaken and realize with horror that my motel was directly across the street. I knew that when I pulled my giant, white, beacon of a 3/4-ton van into the parking lot I would just announce myself to all the Jeff Dahmers of the area. It was 9pm. Awesome.

I get checked in and head to my room, key in hand. A key. Literally, a metal key--which in some situations, can be viewed as quaint. I was simply interested in security at this point, so the key was a bit disheartening, as was the lack of any other form of lock on the door. But this was nothing compared to the room.

In the right context, many of the things that I encountered could have been any variation of the word “quaint”. For example, the adorable stains on the throw pillows. Or the super-cute half-drank can of Squirt in the mini-fridge. Or the endearing loose toilet seat—I love to hover in my hotel! But I was not at a forgivable bed and breakfast out east. I was in the middle of Kansas surrounded by weirdos.

I decided that I would be better off sleeping (and I use this term loosely) in my clothes, skipping the filthy shower, and shoving the “desk chair” (a folding chair) under the door handle for security. Good times!

bonk hard chill

So, DG and I did a 12-hour adventure race on Feb. 7th. Called the Bonk Hard Chill, this race adds the extra challenge of cold weather on top of physical endurance. Good times!

I had done the Frozen Otter, so I felt I had my winter gear pretty dialed in. DG had just done the Arrowhead 135 (26 hours- third place!), so he for sure had his winter gear dialed in. We were set. Oh, except for the fact that the weather took a freak turn and it was 60 degF during the race!! So much for the cold weather home court advantage.

This was DG's first actual AR, and only my third or fourth, so we still had a few things to figure out. We got our maps Friday night and spent a few hours plotting UTMs and mapping our course. We decided I would navgate the first land O, and he would take the second one. We would both work on the canoe and bike routes.

We hit the first land nav section pretty dead on, but our pace was slower overall than most-- I wanted to make sure I wasn't getting us lost. When I'm more confident with my nav skills, then maybe we can run full boar through the woods... but not yet.

Of note was the second canoe section, where we had to strap our bikes in the canoes and paddle them a short distance across the lake. This is where we learned that a tailwind is actually the worst thing you can have in a canoe... a tailwind will blow you sideways. Since DG had never paddled a canoe before, I was in back. I should mention here that I am not known for my upper body strength. You could say that my language in this section was colorful. Definitely one of the more frustrating experiences of my life.

We got on our bikes (the right kind of pain) and did a couple CPs, then got to the church. At the church was a veritable army of volunteers (I believe the volunteer-to-racer ratio was 2:1). Along with brownies, juice, and turkey sandwiches, we received the second half of our map which we then had to plot and chart. Again, we took our time to be safe and double-checked our work.

We hit the final land nav with only enough time for one CP before we had to strap our bikes back in the canoe... and we wanted to give ourselves enough time for that nightmare.

...but the canoe back was something completely different. We were headed into the sunset, and the air was calm. We sat back and enjoyed our final paddle in. It was just a few miles by bike to the finish line from the shore.

Results: DG's first race, my first time not getting short-coursed, cool views of an uncharacteristicly unpopulated Lake of the Ozarks, dead last in our division

Frozen Otter

January 17th was the Frozen Otter Ultra-Trek. For me, a long hike. I attempted the half: 32 miles. I completed half of the half: 16 miles. Single-digit temps, and it snowed the whole goddamn time. It was a trudgefest of a good proportion. One of the more difficult things I've done to date.


I trekked with the guys from team POLeR, Chad Hannon and John "Code" Morris. Chad made a video.


I think this will be excellent training for the Bataan Death March.

CTS Performance Testing Camp

January. Subzero. I have been going so crazy riding the trainer that I started to move my whole workout room upstairs into the empty spare bedroom. I half-assed it, so now the house is an mess of weights, stability balls (yes, plural), bosu, mats, etc, etc, all over the house.

I decided to mix things up a bit and go to the Carmichael Training Systems Performance Testing Camp in Colorado Springs.

All in all, a rockin’ experience. I hadn’t been to CO in a while, and never to CO Springs. It’s a great little town, with cute local restaurants with good food within walking distance of the major hotel.

CTS headquarters is a surprisingly low-key building. I had this illusion of some intimidating structure, full of coaches buzzing around being important and impersonal. The exact opposite is true. A one-level repurposed brick building in an art district, CTS headquarters is totally unassuming. And there were maybe a dozen people in the office, every single one of them friendly and approachable, even Dean Golich (though he seems to have an unnatural lust for Porsches). Chris Carmichael’s office is also unassuming. Many coaches were out with their athletes.

Only two other athletes were at this particular Testing Camp, which is understandable. Only the truly masochistic want to know their performance levels in the off-season, especially that soon after the holidays. One was a pro triathlete. The other was an elite road racer. Truly out of my league… but you would never know it. Everyone treated me exactly the same as the other two campers, and all test results were confidential, given directly to me by my coach.

I’ll spare the lackluster details. The results are: I’m not a pro, I have a lot of work to do, I need to eat better, and I bought a Powertap the second I got home.

hopelessly spoiled~ VandeCross

Yesterday was the Old Towne VandeCross, Race #2 of the DICE series ("Double 'I' Cyclocross Experiment", I believe) out in an old Belgian neighborhood in Moline.

The weather, up until about Saturday, had been unseasonably warm- 70degF on Wednesday- so when Mother Nature decided to bitch slap us with sub-freezing temps and flurries on Sunday, many of us were caught unprepared. I found myself loaning out more than one piece of winter gear. I also wore my Craft balaclava (available for purchase at Healthy Habits) for the first time this year, and was pleased to discover that it smelled way too much like a urinal cake. I did not, to my knowledge, ever place it in a urinal, so I'm not sure where the smell came from. Not that the smell stopped me from wearing it...

Note to self: wash all winter gear before trying to use it.

Anyway, the course was sweet: lots of power climbs and fun, technical descents; corners that allowed speed (when handled with skill- which is not me, but made for fun race viewing); wide, sweeping areas that allowed recovery and acceleration. DICE has me hopelessly spoiled when it comes to race courses.

Did I mention the cold? Not enough to freeze a bottle, but defintely below anything I was prepped for. Layers, layers. I did my best, considering: I hadn't ridden since Thursday, and before that, Monday; my right eye has some sort of unknown (and mildly alarming) allergic reaction that makes me look a bit like I've had a stroke; and when I woke up yesterday morning, my G.I. tract was rocking like a Bosnian discotheque. I rode within my ability, and ended up fifth (in the money!) out of seven.

I'm just glad that this year I am actually racing the Women's races, instead of copping out and going for the Beginner's.

On to Psyclofest!

cultural jackass

Not sure if I did anything wrong here, but it seems highly feasible.

I just got done shooting a portrait of a man from Finland. His English was pretty good, but I still found myself making a lot of hand gestures, including the dreaded "thumb's up".

The first time I flashed the awful thumb, my subject startled a bit- as though I had flipped him the bird. I instantly realized my faux pas: many a hand signal means something else in other cultures. (Such as our "OK" symbol basically means "asshole" in certain Asian countries.) I do not know if a thumb's up is offensive in Finland or not, but it seems very possible that it could mean "up yours, shit tooth".

I never, ever use the "thumb's up". I know it's totally lame. So it's baffling that it was my instinctive first move with this guy.

But more horrifying is the fact that I continued to use it. I must've flashed my thumb half a dozen times, including as I walked him out. "Okay, thanks! See you later! Up yours, shit tooth."

I'm an asshole.